


Nakedness

by wardaddy



Category: Fury (2014)
Genre: AU, Adultery, Canon/OC - Freeform, Cunnilingus, Daddy Kink, F/M, Grinding, M/M, Mentions of War, NSFW, She's important to me fuck off ok, Smut, This is ridiculously filled with smut, lots of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:22:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wardaddy/pseuds/wardaddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don and Boyd find love after the war in Don's small home in Nebraska. Grady finds love in Don's wife, Martha, who's only in the other room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nakedness

It was the one night that she had let him stay in her room, his knees pressed to her bed frame. He had long legs, she noticed, long enough to take two strides across the small room and be able to exit into the kitchen, which was a large square, the stove and fridge to one side, the table in the middle. This allowed for her to move through that and into the living room if she needed Don, or he needed her. Martha had made sure that she purchased a home suitable for herself and for her husband, who was missing from the room and very likely in his own, trying to work the cogs in his head to allot him normality in the everyday life of a civilian. Obviously, since they were separated by the wide kitchen and dingy living room, it wasn’t going so well for him. If it had been, maybe they would sleep in the same bed.

She found company in Grady, though begrudgingly so. Grady was plenty of company, but he was messy and grimy, just like her husband, and just what she liked to stay away from in a man. When they’d first met he put his hand around her thigh, cupping the milky skin with his calloused and scarred hands. She’d minded then and said so to Don.

‘Why you gotta keep bringin’ them in here? I don’t like how they look at me.’

‘Because I goddamn need these gentlemen; they saved me once, they keep doin’ it again.’

In her opinion, they’d done nothing to Don but changed him for the worst. Don had never really been a man of words and affection, but physicality. Even then, their physical intimacy was limited, and when it occurred, Martha got very little out of it. Don was a selfish lover and finished inside of her before giving her the opportunity to get off; once he did that, he’d leave the room and get a drink, or smoke a cigarette, and sometimes go out in hunt of an odd job or two to bring in some cash.

But now their marriage had ground to a halt: Don had cheated on her when the war came around, but she was also guilty of that sin. However, he cheated on her with a man, and man laying with man was a sin, as far as Martha was concerned. That same man did come to their house frequently, always into Don’s room, where he’d soothe a screaming, aching man into quietness and grumbled apologies. So Grady, nick-named Coon-Ass, would come into her room and sit with her, touch her hair or her hands, but was otherwise silent. Sometimes he would talk and not touch her, and after a particularly bad night with Don, he refused to touch her or look at her, instead praying to the God above to lead him away from temptation.

After one glass of expensive wine, she had retired for the night, retreating to her room in a tired march, her sleeping gown hanging from her shoulders and skimming her thin hips and legs. Martha Collier was a small woman; Don could hold around the side of her waist with a single hand. She was made of milky skin and smoothed hair, which was always pulled back or curled and flowing just above the peak of her breasts. She had the same blue eyes as Don, cold and blue, but hers were slightly more inviting, while his warded off everyone and anyone.

Laying in the bed was no relief, though, and she was soon on her side, thinking of an arm around her waist like she had always dreamed it would be when she was younger, a man surrounding her like a protective exterior. In the background she could hear the sound of a broken glass and Don shouting in imaginary pain, Boyd rushing to his side to calm him down. Martha saw it all in her head: Boyd would grab his face like she never got to, press his forehead to Don’s, and talk to him in flurried words, usually containing the words: ‘It’s me, it’s Boyd. It’s just me.’ As sweet and gracious as he had been since he had eaten dinner over for the first night, Martha despised him; just looking at him made her blood bubble over a steady fire. Don was her husband, committed by a ring that he no longer wore. Divorce wasn’t an option, and they all knew it, everyone involved in their train wreck of a marriage that shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. Yet, even past their marriage and failed attempts at love, he favored a man, a man that preached tolerance and equality to him. When she thought of how Don would listen to him, let him touch him, let Boyd press his nose to his cheek or wrap his arms around him, and had never let her, she became infuriated, and also horribly saddened by the idea that what they had had could no longer be salvaged. They were yelling matches and broken glass and walls, Boyd and Don were quiet touches and intense looks.

Don and Martha recognized long ago that their marriage was something of a travesty, and something unhealed and unable to be healed. When he informed her of his willingness, his need to go to the second war, they’d fought and never reconciled before he left.

‘I ain’t gonna fuckin’ stay and play dress-up! I ain’t gonna stay here and pretend that there ain’t fuckin’ people, people like us, that need savin’, that need to be helped. I ain’t gonna pretend that that’s not where I’m supposed to fuckin’ be, with them.’

‘Who said you were doing that? You’re too old now, Don, you’re too old and you’ve already suffered one war!’

‘So what the fuck is another gonna do to me that it ain’t already done?’

It wasn’t a debate after that point, because it was true; a child laborer, a survivor of tuberculosis and nearly having his hands torn off, of getting kicked in the stomach by a horse, Don had experienced a life’s worth of trauma. Behind closed eyes he saw explosions, saw trenches, saw men dying and screaming and burning. Behind closed eyes, he saw himself as a child, begging for bread, begging for water, begging for shelter. At just 18 he was left on his own, with no family to take him in, and the only clothes he had were the ones on his back. At nineteen he was shipped off, and returned more broken than fixed, as opposed to what he said. She had found some solace in him, for whatever reason, because he was so vastly different from her. She fell in love immediately, and he had, too, but then fell out almost as soon as he had fallen in with her. 

In 1930, they were married, just as Don had turned thirty-five, and she, twenty-five. Their wedding kiss had lasted a fraction of a second, and they never consummated their marriage. She got over that.

Don had admitted to wanting to be with others. She got over that.

When he told her he no longer loved her, she got over that, too. But his loving a man would not be something she willingly got over. His allowance of his friend constantly approaching her, she would never get over that. But in one instance of loneliness, she allowed him into her room, allowed him to sit with her, and talk with her, and that soon became a nightly event, that she even, admittedly, looked forward to.

Grady slowly had crept into her room, sitting in the chair that now remained at her bed permanently. His knees touched her bed frame. Licking dry lips, he exhaled, and in a croaking voice, said to her: “It ain’t true what he says about you. You ain’t stupid.”

An earlier argument had rendered the insult, and she had flinched like he had actually hit her, because he had, but verbally. Martha had felt demeaned and insulted, but didn’t make a retaliation for once. Soon after he spewed venom with his words, he returned to his room with Boyd at his hip, and once in there, they murdered quietly back and forth, his hand wrapped around the back of Don’s in reassurance. 

No, she wasn’t stupid; she was realistic, but she was still glad to hear it. Turning over to look at him, she pulled the covers over her shoulder and smiled wryly. “I’m glad to hear you say that.” He interrupted her reminiscing, and she was glad for it, reaching out to press a hand over his, to which he moved, attempting to do so in the most subtle way that he could. They looked at each other and locked eyes, an intense gaze that Grady had never shared with another woman before her. It was against the Commandments for her to commit adultery, but she had already; it wasn’t against the Commandments for him to be in love with her in a way he assumed no one else felt. He certainly never had.  
Licking his lips again and shifting, he looked at her, his eyes dragging over her body that was hidden under the covers; this used to make her uncomfortable, and she would shift so her body wasn’t as heavily outlined and obvious to him. Tonight, she shifted the covers from her body, allowing him to look over her delicate frame that was wrapped in a near translucent fabric, bunched at her thighs, just above where her knees pressed together. And he did, but tried his best not to ogle. Grady was not a gentleman, but he certainly didn’t want to scare her off, and he certainly was sober enough that he cared about not upsetting her.

He was quiet and spoke almost breathless. “I wanted to treat you tonight, but I ain’t gonna touch you,” he said, looking at his own knees and away from her. Maybe some part of her loved him, but they were on wholly different planets as far as she was concerned. Yet, she’d let him humor her: if he wasn’t going to touch her, he was going to use his words, and that was something he’d done before. But tonight felt desperate, like they both needed it. 

It always started the same: he’d start nervous, trying to say words that were beyond his vocabulary. When he got into the swing of the dirty talking, she’d be able to picture it, and then it escalated until she was coming on her hand, her other hand grabbing at his knee. And it started that way this night, too, though he sounded more confident, and stuttered out less of his words while he looked her over.

“I wanna kiss you, I think. But not just on your mouth, you know? You ain’t like those whores in Germany and France, so I’d like to kiss you. But I ain’t fuckin’ lookin’ to get murdered, either. You got a batshit husband, you know that?”

She blinked and nodded, smiling just a little bit at him. He was endearing in some strange veteran way, a humor and a smile only a man who had served could possess. Martha understood that he was similar to Don in appearance, and also in faith and morals. It was something that made her heart throb at the very least, and something that helped her to be comfortable in the same room with her. Their first meeting was not one she wanted to remember, but she did begrudgingly. But now it made her smile more and regret less, and after careful contemplation, she moved over on the plush bed, the blankets rustling around her body as she moved into a foreign part of the bed that had once been reserved for her husband, or anyone that cared to take his place.

“I want you to lay down with me tonight,” she told him with bated breath, wondering if he’d take that place beside her, in her wedding bed. Grady looked at her like she had shot an electrical cord through him, but quickly nodded, nearly falling out of his chair in the process. He nearly laid beside her before he seemed to remember the door and its openness to the rest of the house, and, with that, Don and Boyd. Getting up quickly, he scrambled to shut the door, his shoes entirely graceless across the polished wooden floor, his hand gripping at the bureau adorned with perfumes and makeups, assorted and not all bought by her. When he finally took his seat, he looked up at the ceiling, not daring to imagine what she looked like now. It was too good, like a dessert he’d been waiting the whole meal to eat. But not yet, he told himself, not yet. 

“I thought about, at the dinner table, while Boyd was prayin’, reachin’ between your legs. That in itself is a sinful thought, but shit, I gotta know, lady,” he said, finally turning his head to gaze at her. What she saw was, in order: lust, love, affection, need, and then want. All in one simple gaze, she realized who he was and what he wanted, and it was more than just this one night with his hand gripping her thigh, much like it had the first time they met. Grinning unashamedly, he turned on his side, using a sheet to conceal the tent forming in his pants while he looked her over. Cleaned up, or shaved with clean teeth and a fresh cut, he looked good, and Martha couldn’t help but acknowledge his chiseled jaw line and cheekbones. It was something she had felt irrevocably attracted to, but was quiet about it.

“What if I let you do that? What if I wanted you to touch me; would you?” She asked, her eyes focused on his features, and then down to his hand, where it seemed to twitch from forced restraint. It didn’t seem to take him much longer to act, his hand moving under the blankets hastily to push aside the unnecessary laced fabrics, the delicate silk. He grabbed at the back of her thigh, exhaling like it rejuvenated his entire body, just simply by touching her.  
Don had never done that.

But she was quick to react, pushing off the blankets and reaching for the fronts of his shirt, pulling close and wrapping her leg around his waist, but then she paused, looking at him as though she was dazed by his abruptness, by his need to be close. It was foreign to her, and it was foreign to him to have someone pressed up against him in the same fashion. They stared at each other for a long while, absorbing the pain from each other and trying to cope with the idea of touching when they knew how wrong it was, how sinful it was, but how blissful it would be. The ideals outweighed the negativities, and soon she was pressed against him further, delicate, smooth hands wrapping around his neck, where she rubbed away beads of sweat. Her mouth was against his, sweet like a cherry, and he was licking into her mouth in the way God would disapprove of. But God didn’t matter right now, he thought, while her lips wrapped around his tongue and sucked in a way that was too much of an indulgent that he could be saved by any means of confession.

A guttural moan and a sigh of relief, Grady’s hands gripping around her thigh with bruising pressure, callouses pressing into her smooth, unbroken skin. Fuck, he wanted to mark it up, he wanted her to look between her legs and remember that he had been there, making her squirm and yelp, and he wanted his head to ache with how she pulled his hand in trembling fists. She was warm, soothing, like a cup of watered down coffee on the roads with the tanks. Martha was sweet, but bittersweet, her tongue having been pushed into other mouths before his. But it didn’t ruin his ecstasy, his mouth moving against hers as though he had always known how to do it, their kiss wet and the clicks of it filling the room. Grady debated in his head on moving down on her immediately or teasing her, but either way he wanted to end up between her legs, inhaling her scent: like cleanliness, but amplified, he expected, licking his lips and hers, in turn. 

The next time she pulled away she was panting, her lips red and swollen, bitten and licked at thoroughly. She turned on her back, her hair sprawled across the pillow and twisting at the ends, the ringlets decorating her small shoulders and stuck to her mouth. Grady felt he’d never seen someone so delectable, so easily devoured, and he wanted more, he craved more, and soon enough he was ducking under the blankets hurriedly, already panting when he pushed her knees apart, pressing a kiss to the inside of her right knee. He could feel the bone shift as her leg swayed, but he only looked up, as if challenging her to close them. But she smiled lazily, twirling her hair with one finger idly, wondering if he was going to impress her, issuing her own challenge simply by looking at him.

And he took it as just that: a challenge. Instead of kissing the inside of her knee again, he grazed his lip down the inside of her leg until he reached the softest part of her thigh, pushing his teeth into the skin, tenderly at first, and then harder, holding it still while she huffed with surprise, and then winced. Pain was his specialty, but then so was pleasure. Pain preceded pleasure, always, a tough lesson learned in the military. Grady would get beat until the lesson stuck, and then rewarded for a job well done. Pain before pleasure, and it made the wait and the sounds she made all the more sweet.

Instead of focusing on bruising her in the one spot further, he moved down, bruising her closer to where she smelled the best, and then back up, and to the other leg. Crescent shaped indents marked her legs now, and then he sucked hickeys over them, the red highlighting the purple perfectly against the white of her legs. He looked over Martha’s legs, and felt it was a masterpiece, before looking back up at her and meeting her gaze with a sly grin. “You like bein’ bit, honey?” He asked, brows lifting.

“I didn’t until you did it,” she admitted, unashamed with this. She looked at him evenly, sat up on her elbows now while her blonde hair cascaded behind her, her eyes intense to match his. His grin only widened, before he ducked his head again, this time pushing up her dress gruffly, leaning down to flatly and wetly press his tongue to her clitoris, through her underwear, to which she writhed and moved her fingers into his hair, tangling them into the curled, matted strands, like he hoped she would. His tongue stayed flat as he lapped at her labia, and then again at her clitoris, only wetting her panties further than they had been before, and then licking up what he could, groaning in his throat at her taste.

When he pulled away, his lips were redder than before, glistening in the light coming from the windows of a young moon. “Fuck, sweetheart, you taste like Heaven if I ain’t never tasted it before.” But he didn’t duck down again, instead sitting up on his knees to wait to hear if Don had made any attempts to approach the room: thankfully, he hadn’t, so instead, he hooked his fingers on the bands of the fabric that went around her waist, the final barrier between her and him. Instead of tugging them off, which she lifted her hips to do so, he ripped them without so much as a slight tug. The rip was a small sound, but he pulled the fabric away hurriedly and closed the distance between them, pressing his tongue against her opening, the tip of it pushing in just slightly as she gasped and sighed, her back arching lovelier than any before her. Seizing the opportunity, he grabbed around her lifted waist and dragged her until she was pressed to his face.

Using his nose as a guide, and very much buried in her, he moved up, tongue around the labia, and then tracing around the clitoris, but not touching it once, instead sucking on it and listening to the wet smack when he let go. Martha had her legs over his shoulders now, fingers buried deeper into his hair and pulling his mouth closer to her body so she could desperately attempt to grind against his face, though that was so far fruitless when he was holding her hips still. Extending her neck back, she closed her eyes and furrowed her brows while he tongued her clitoris with the tip of his tongue, using the force he could to really enforce the wet pressure onto her. When he had relinquished his grip, only slightly, she took the opportunity to grab his hair and tongue him close, her hips moving on their own accord, pressing her entirety against his mouth, grinding without restraint.  
“Grady,” she breathed, his name foreign on her lips, but no longer unwelcome. Strange, but not unpleasant, she thought, as she called it out a few more times while she pressed herself to his tongue, to his teeth as much as he would allow. It was like a sip of gold thereafter, melting over her lips in the sweetest taste.

Grady had come as soon as she said his name, his hips jolting into the bed while he buried his mouth and the tip of his nose in her, his brows furrowed while he breathed hard against her, into her. So tantalizingly close to being inside of her, yet so far, having only pushed his tongue into her to feel her contract as she got closer, closer, closer. When he hummed against her, his whole mouth covering from her clitoris to just near her opening, she came with a sudden whimper and sharp arch. Grady thought it might have been the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; he’d been to Rome, to Paris, to Africa, but watching her bend and go loose-limbed was something alien and something that was so inexplicably beautiful that he had to force himself to stop staring.

And then they laid still, his cheek resting against her thigh, her hands still firmly in his hair. He studied her like he’d never see her again, because this was the first, and likely the last time. But when she tugged again, he felt that dissolve as he crawled up beside her, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and grabbing her chin to kiss her again, letting her taste herself, to which she pulled away with a small glare. Grady only laughed, pinching her cheek and then patting it. “You’re a good girl, Martha,” he told her. “You’re a real good girl, and you ain’t deservin’ none of what’s happenin’ to you.” He hadn’t known many women like her, and he was furious Don would give her up in order to hold someone with shorter eyelashes, with tearing eyes, and stoic like he was. It made no sense to him, and only fueled his anger and need for Martha.

“You don’t need him no more,” he said, as she turned, smiling to herself while she grabbed his arm, wrapping it around her middle with a small amount of force. “He ain’t gonna care for you no more. I am, I’m gonna do it, okay? I’m gonna care about you forever, now. Okay? Forever.” Forever. She fell asleep, thinking of this happily, much like she had as a child, blonde locks tucked behind her ears like they were now, a sister’s arm around her middle, like Coon’s was now. “Forever,” she replied tiredly, curling herself into him.  
Yet, even still, there was movement in the house, though not nearly as dramatic, and not nearly as loud. In the small house of two bedrooms, a kitchen, a sliver of a living room, and a bathroom, there wasn’t much space to be loud if with another. Yet Don managed, his hands wrapped around the small of Bible’s bare back, his pants and boots still on. They were sweating, listening to the pit-pat of the rain that Martha and Grady were almost entirely deaf to. Don never thought of Martha anymore, not until he was saying a curt, tense word to her. Even then, it was only a sharp remark of demanding solitude, and then never anything more.

But he was silent, leaning back into a messy arrangement of pillows and blankets, clustered on his bed to provide some elevation, though he sunk into them. The scars of his back felt it before he did himself, and he brought Boyd closer, not yet kissing him, but allowing their lips to brush. Boyd cleaned up looked something of a Greek God, his muscles sculpted just so, his body poised almost constantly to be so. Boyd was walking art, though he only felt average.

Growing up in the city, he never understood silence better than he had now, when the air was thick with it, his tongue saturated in its richness. It was nearly a color, almost clear when he looked at Don. That, he decided, was in part due to his lack of glasses, but he knew the silence was tangible; but he didn’t break it. Instead he swallowed it, not daring to move his hips, though he was aching in his pants, almost as hard as Don was, which he felt through his own pants and through Don’s. The silent was so entirely, and starkly different from the bustling of New York, it had almost startled him at first. But Don and Boyd had always been silence and gazes, touches and understanding when they looked at each other. His hands cupped the back of Don’s head, where the hair was soft, growing, almost silky when his fingers slipped through it, wanting to soothe him, wanting to communicate what he couldn’t in words or in touches and gazes: he loved him.

And fuck, Don loved him, too, an emotion he thought impossible of feeling. Wardaddy never learned to recognize what it was, but he had a semblance of an idea of what it meant to him. Bible was attached to him, hip, shoulder, foot, and hand. It was something that had been, was, and always would be, they thought, looking into each other now. They didn’t just meet eyes, they saw each other’s souls: Bible’s always pure, and Don’s always cracking with corruption and sin. But Boyd adored him anyways, and told him so by kissing at the crack in his face that had nearly tugged off a part of his lip with strange gentleness. He remembered it:

A knife had gone through his face with surprising ease, like the Nazi had been cutting into butter, had been cutting into someone that didn’t matter so entirely much to Boyd. The thought immediately caused him to pull the trigger at that man without a second thought, and he fell, his knife falling with him. Don had laughed, though he could tell Boyd he was in pain and needed to be patched, even through the blood that was threatening to overfill his mouth. Boyd did as he was told, said Grace quietly, and then pressed his lips to the bandaging, a move both forward and expected. 

But his hands were wrapped around him tightly, callouses hard against his soft skin. Looking at Don, he saw a man with a rough past that he didn’t know of and wasn’t a part of, but felt like he could understand. A child laborer, he assumed, without a religious threshold and without anything to fall on. A veteran from two world wars with a wife that hated him, but a technician that adored him. Another moment passed between them, eyes hard on each other, before he leaned in to press his mouth to Don’s, though both their eyes and mouths remained open. They breathed life into each other and took it from each other, and watched as they infiltrated each other with thoughts, with love, with adoration, with everything they could in a kiss. Bible was the first to tenderly bite on Wardaddy’s lip, though not in the way their sex usually was, not in a very raucous way. But it passed a spark from Don’s lips through his spine and ribs, electrifying him back to life.

Don turned him, then, so he back was pressed to his own chest. Boyd smiled coyly, grinning when Don had put his hands on his hips, and then slid his own hands over the scars on his hands, reaching back until his elbow, eyes closed while he took in every single fiber of him, in muscle, flesh, bone, and blood. He didn’t need to say he loved him, but he looked over his shoulder and told him it with a slow blink. Don had never understood how Boyd could love so much and so intensely, but he adored that quality in him, the ability he had to see through people’s exteriors and past their flaws to something truly good, that maybe they didn’t see themselves.  
When Wardaddy’s fingers tightened on his hips, Boyd exhaled, his eyes falling closed, the lids lavender with wear and unrest, the patterns of the veins over them weaving to create webs cast over his eyes. 

“Boyd.” Not Bible. Don was quiet, his nose skimming along his shoulder blade, his bottom lip following with it. Don was drinking him in, was allowing himself to indulge, and healing himself. Boyd was glad for this as he rocked back against him, brows furrowed. A breathless moan managed to escape him, which prompted a grin from Don.  
“You wanna get us in trouble?” He asked, challenging him by sliding his hand down to his groin, groping his hard cock through his pants without consideration to his still open mouth. “Oh,” Boyd said, relieved when he was able to push into the friction. “Daddy, fuck,” he mumbled, to which Don grabbed around him again, tight with want and need. Bible pushed his hips into his hand again, bucking into his hand, and then against Wardaddy’s own cock; even if he’d never feel it truly, he felt filled by him and groaned at the prospect.

Their sex was entirely unconventional. Don had hated it at first, loathing his celibacy for disallowing the prospect of penetration. How the fuck was he supposed to fuck him if he couldn’t push inside of him and release? Later, after having done that far too many times, he understood that, though it was slightly uncomfortable, and at times, very frustrating, it was duly rewarding, and he enjoyed it. Don respected Bible, respected his beliefs, and felt that he was man enough to not constantly crave penetration. Should he, he knew Boyd’s mouth was a very viable option, at least.

And in turn, Bible only loved him more, his heart thudding when he felt him press against him, though he was soothed by Don’s willingness to adapt to what he needed and wanted. When he groaned, he felt Don’s hand clamp over his mouth, which only made him groan more, as he was forced to be held back against his chest. The other hand occupied itself with grabbing him through his pants, which made his toes curl, even in his boots. Pushing into his hand without much restraint, he closed his eyes tight and exhaled hard through his nose, the air sliding over his knuckles. Don, in turn, grinned, leaning forward to press his lips to his shoulder, and then push up against him, his own brows creating a crease between them.

They hadn’t started too long ago, but Boyd thought he was already dangerously close, especially when Don pinched his nostrils closed for just a second, which made him shake against him, his hips sharp as they snapped forward into his hand, and back against his own cock. Wardaddy did admit to chafing once and a while, but it was nothing he wasn’t accustomed to, post-World War II. His grin disappeared and then he was pressing his mouth and nose to his shoulder blade, quieting his own breathing as he grabbed him hard and pushed up, trying to get as much friction as he could in one moment. Even through the fabric, Boyd was warm, and this connection, Don felt, was more intimate than being inside of him. 

Honestly, he wouldn’t trade this feeling for penetration even if he could.

When Bible began to buck his hips in a way that was absolutely the opposite of biblical and holy, Don grabbed around his thick waist with both arms, allowing him to breathlessly whimper into the dark. Then he held him still, not allowing him to grind forward or backwards on him, which earned him a frustrated grunt in return. “Please, Daddy,” he said, quiet, almost begrudgingly. When he called him ‘Daddy,’ Don pushed up against him, earning him another grunt. 

“Please, Daddy,” he said again, turning to look over his right shoulder at him. He was clearly irritated and very close to coming, which only amused Don further. Boyd often got this look on his face if Grady attempted to argue with him about his mustache, but there was a flicker of desperation and hope that he would be allowed to move again. “I been good,” he reminded him, clearly demanding it of him to let him come. Boyd had been dutiful, had done as told, and only now broken the rule of being quiet. But Don let his hips go anyways, and when freed from his grip, Boyd pushed back against him relentlessly and restlessly, his hips pushing against him like it wasn’t a sin in the bible. 

When he felt Wardaddy’s hand at his throat, he took in a hard breath, feeling it caught in his throat where his hand rested, almost as if he quite literally held his breath. But he didn’t squeeze, instead moving his hand to his mouth again, and pushing two fingers into it. Boyd was happy for them, sucking on them and sliding his tongue against them, his mouth wet and hot, his tongue soft. Don felt like he was rubbing his fingers over the silk of a dress, but this was far more stimulating. With one more grunt, Don’s face became set in stone, his brows tugged together, his teeth and jaw clenching as he came, pushing up against Boyd hard, and then holding him down so he could feel the pressure and friction against him. When Bible felt his hips twitch suddenly, he shuddered, coming with a pained expression, bending at the waist over his own lap.

It was during intense euphoric moments like this that Don remembered that moment when he pinpointed that he loved him again, and also when he could fully admire his body for what it was: a near replica of the statue David, in all its naked glory, even if he was half clothed. Instead of speaking, Don leaned forward and pressed tender kisses to his bare back, his fingers pulling out of his mouth. Instead of wiping them off on the bed first, he stuck them in his mouth and then did so, using the other hand to trace up and down Boyd’s spine, feeling every ridge from each vertebrae, and loving each and every one of them, glad for their composition in Boyd’s being. Grateful, even, for God blessing him this man, a man he truly did not deserve.

God had to know that, he thought, while Bible awkwardly pushed himself from his lap and stood, shucking his pants and stepping out of them when they hit the floor. He even discarded his underwear, though he was abashed, to say the least, his features lighting up with a light pink. He lit up the cramped room, standing between the cluttered desk with broken drawers and Don’s bed, looking over the papers there. Don used to draw diagrams of what he saw at work, but they were nothing more than torn scribbles that he tried to discard when he realized what pain it took to look at them. When Boyd looked back at him, they met eyes and they both understood: living was exhausting.  
Boyd also slipped out of his boots, and Don his, and then his pants, and then his underwear. When they were both completely bare, still with residue of come here and there, Don slid under the covers, exhaling and looking at the ceiling. But then he grinned, looking over at Boyd.

“It never gets old. Sleepin’ in a bed. It’s fuckin’ great, no—better than great. It’s the best feeling.” Aside from being with Boyd, but he felt he could gather that much without him needed to say it. Boyd only smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed first, popping his back, and then kicking his legs under the blanket, resting on the pillow and facing him. Like this, he looked the most beautiful, Don thought, when it almost appeared he had a halo from the light setting outside, his eyes tired, though no longer bleary. It was like God had sent an angel, quite literally, that had the ability to pull through something as severe as a war. Don was impressed that an angel could get scars and incorporate them into his being comfortably, smile and laugh still, make witty remarks, and still somehow manage to be the holiest Don had ever known.

A lot of times they did this: they stared at each other, just stared, trying to see into each other’s souls, or maybe try to see past them into something deeper. Don wondered sometimes if Boyd tried to see if he was saved by looking into him like that, but then felt that was almost wholly ridiculous. Don was as far from saved as he was from holy, maybe even equidistant if he measured it by sin.

“This is one’a the comfiest beds I ever been in, Top,” Boyd said, gently, smiling now and kicking a leg forward, resting his ankle on top of Wardaddy’s. It was comfortable this way, bone on bone, skin on skin, even if minimal. Don usually ended up migrating closer to Bible later in the night, but found himself scooting closer already, his nose already pressed to his as he closed his eyes. ‘I love you,’ was an assurance they never needed to say to each other: they knew it. They learned it, repeated it silently, and said it against each other’s lips with wet tongues and gnashing teeth. Love wasn’t verbal, love came with actions, and through those actions were the actual words that would remain unsaid to truly convey the meaning behind them.

 

The next time he opened his eyes sunlight was filtering through the blinds, dust particles dancing around each other and settling on the wooden desk and papers that were strewn about it. Boyd was still asleep, giving him the impression it must be early, and, looking at his watch, he discovered it was only seven, a gratuitous time for him to sleep. Rolling out of the creaking bed, he grabbed a fresh pair of underwear, pants, and a shirt, slipping his boots back on and completely ignoring his hair. It used to be important, so it didn’t tear his vision away from the object at hand: the enemies.

He looked over his room, soaked in golden sunlight, only lit up more by Boyd still in his bed, eyes opening now, though he was making no attempts to move. The suitcases toppled on the chair in front of the desk, the boots discarded in the room, the blankets strewn about, he looked out of place in it all. The only bit that fit was that he seemed to soak up the sunlight: Don wished he had a camera. But he shut the door, tearing his eyes away with force to look around the small living room, the carpet making a soft noise beneath his feat, the couch and coffee table oddly empty, and made his way into the kitchen, which was deadly silent. Martha wasn’t up, it seemed, her door closed, an article of clothing blockading the bottom gap of it. Unsurprising, she typically didn’t want to hear Don yell at night. Shrugging, he went to the door to pick up the milk, drinking a glass by himself and then putting the remaining bottles on the center of the table: she could take care of it later.

With some long strides he found himself in the barn, approaching his horse with a sort of graceful ease. It wasn’t quite warm yet, but early enough that morning dew still hung in the air like ornaments, decorating everything, even bits of the horse’s coat. Listening to the drawing in and releasing of the horse’s deep breath, as though it were constantly sighing in relief, caused Don to slow and take a brush in his hand, and push it through its hair. Calm. Quiet. The white hair of the mare was almost unperturbed, aside from a few grey speckles of dirt that he had yet to brush out. Once he did, she was majestic, unsuited for this sort of barn, for this sort of place.

Then he heard the crunch of hay on the ground and turned, looking at Boyd, who only seemed to have woken up, scrambled for his clothes, and then made it outside. 

“Saw you leavin’, thought I’d follow along in case she woke up. That’s a real pretty horse, Don. You name her?” He asked, fighting a yawn in a thick, breathy voice, his irises still dark with exhaust.

“Yeah, her name’s Paperback Fury,” he told him, looking back at her with an immense amount of love, one Boyd was familiar with seeing. He connected with animals, particularly horses, when he looked them in the eyes and breathed with them, inhaling through his nose and exhaling out of his mouth, blinks slow and measured. “Paperback, ‘cause she’s white, and I happen to enjoy paperback novels when I can get my hands on ‘em, and Fury, because she’s my home away from home.”

Home away from home, Boyd thought, thinking of their tank almost immediately, the dark green complimenting the white in his head. Nodding, he approached the horse and pressed his fingers to her nose, letting her nudge his hand.

“She’s real beautiful. You take good care’a her.”

“I do. She’s my pride. She’s always been a good girl, ‘cept for this one time, when she kicked me in the stomach.”

“Well, what were you doin’?” He asked, as though he were prepared to defend the horse.

“Fell off’a her, she was bein’ feisty that day. I stood up, and I said, ‘That ain’t no way to act!’ Like she could understand me, so she kicked me, like she really did. I tell you, Boyd, horses are intelligent creatures. They got feelings, and they got somethin’ in them that men don’t got. You look into her eyes and you see an animal, but I see a goddamn soul that’s got this capability like no other.”

Boyd was silent, nodding. He did see a horse, but one that was graced by God. He stepped back to look at her within her makeshift stall, one built by Don himself from lumber and nails, blood and sweat. 

“You ever ride her?”

“Can’t do it after Normandy,” he said, pausing and then turning to him. “You wanna try it? I’ll lead her around.”

Boyd shrugged and nodded. He figured it’d be decent exercise for the horse, and felt confident in this until Don had actually latched the saddle to the horse. She only continued to eat, her breath warm and puffing into the air. 

“Alright, up you go,” he said, pushing a bucket to her side and gesturing to it. “Get on up.”

And Bible did, and then shifted from one side to another, pushing his feet in the stirrups. When Don opened the gate, and she walked out, Bible understood what Don meant then.  
He understood that this animal had the capacity to carry another without becoming weary, and still being trusting and loving. Bible understood well, and when Don offered to lead her, he let him, watching with enormous amounts of admiration as he brought him through the wooden stables, and out into a pasture, one that extended to the horizon in a flat plateau. 

As he pulled him along, they were both quiet, listening to the sound of grass being pushed under the horse’s and Don’s feet, watching as she ate Buttercups in the field. But Don was happy, and Boyd knew it. He could see it on his face as he looked off to where the sun rose, and at the horse as her jaw moved to crunch the vegetables in her mouth. With Boyd on the horse, walking beside him as they looked at each other once and a while, it felt like home, it felt natural.

A home away from home.


End file.
